What’s up, Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones

Huntsville, Ala – Explore the creative genius, influences and legacy of animation director and artist Charles Martin “Chuck” Jones (1912-2002) at the Huntsville Museum of Art beginning Sunday, October 16. Join us at 2 p.m. to watch Looney Tunes cartoons and other Chuck Jones animation creations such as Warner Brothers’ Bully for Bugs featuring Bugs Bunny, Merrie Melodies’ Zoom & Bored featuring Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner, and more! Children will enjoy hands-on art activities, ongoing from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. in the Stender Family Interactive Education Galleries. The Huntsville Museum of Art Guild will host a reception in the Richard and Roper Room from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.

What’s Up, Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones, a Smithsonian traveling exhibition, features 23 animated films and more than 125 original sketches and drawings, storyboards, production backgrounds, animation cels, and photographs. The exhibition, which will be on view through January 22, 2017, is a partnership between the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity, and the Museum of the Moving Image. It’s traveling to museums around the country on a 13-city tour through 2019.

Jones brought to life some of the most iconic cartoon characters in animation history. He perfected the wisecracking Bugs Bunny and the exasperated Daffy Duck and created a host of other characters, including Pepé Le Pew, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. He brought an unparalleled talent for comic invention and a flair for creating distinctive, memorable characters to the art of film animation.

“Chuck Jones is one of the enduring geniuses of American comedy, as accomplished in the art of animation as his hero Mark Twain was in literature,” said David Schwartz, chief curator of the Museum of the Moving Image, who curated the exhibition with Barbara Miller, the museum’s curator of the collection and exhibitions. “His work is marked by its ability to convey the distinctive personality of his characters, his endless comic invention and his mastery of timing and visual and verbal humor.” In a career that spanned seven decades, he created more than 300 animated films and received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. After leaving Warner Bros. in 1962, Jones continued to create award-winning films, including collaborations with author Theodore Geisel on the classic television specials Horton Hears a Who! and Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas.